Category : Sales Management and Marketing your Small Business
Article:
v2-SSB-SMMSB-00019
Marketing Objectives for Your Web Site
Every small business needs marketing objectives for its marketing
plans. The objectives paint a bigger picture for the marketing plan.
The objectives created for marketing will help you answer the questions:
how will your site overcome internet challenges? and what is the purpose
of your site?
Business Models
You first need to lay out a business model for your site. This model
will show how your business will grow. Your objectives need to be
clearly understood because they will help you identify how the site
should be designed and marketed for your business.
E-Commerce or Direct Revenues
You must discuss where you can generate money from your website. Money
can be generated from selling directly to the customer or selling
portion of your site for advertisement purposes. Most sites offer
space for advertising.
Brand Images
A good way to help improve sales is to improve the image of your products
or company. Normally products are presented to the market in such
a way that they cause customers to inquire about the product. The
presentations can be virtual or physical.
Customer service enhancement
People will always come to you because they were referred to you from
a trusted source. The referral point could be a customer, or trusted
sources like websites where the customer saw your advertisements,
for example, MSN or Yahoo.
Lowering operation costs
Having a website lowers the operation costs significantly. This happens
by offering such functions as automated customer service, Web-based
FAQ, order status reports, product specifications, etc. Having these
components greatly reduces business expenses, like consumer relation
staff to accommodate the queries of the customer. Costs can be further
reduced by having an online interface to your suppliers providing
them an online view of the inventory status.
Customer Stages: Awareness, Interest, Trial, and Repeat
All marketing objectives are centered on the lines of customer stages.
There are four stages a new customer will take before becoming loyal
to your business. The first step is awareness. Your customer has to
know that you exist. Once the customer is aware of your site you will
spark interest in them by motivating them to visit you. Once you have
their interest, you can offer them a free trial of your product or
service. After having sampled your product or service, you can count
their next purchase as repeat business.
There are many ways to design a marketing objective, so you should
design a strategy that will include a few ways to build a business.
In the marketing objective you should mention the customer stages
and the business models, to make it easier to choosing the right
strategy for your business.
